In re Hall - Case Brief
In re Hall, 781 F.2d 897 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Facts:
The examiner rejected the claims of Hall’s reissue application on the grounds that they were anticipated under 35 USC 102(b) by a doctoral thesis in a university library in the Federal Republic of Germany that was made available to the public more than one year prior to the critical date. The examiner’s rejection was sustained on appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences.
The director and manager of the university library loan department had made a statement that approximated the date the thesis would have been available to the public based on the library’s procedures for processing doctoral theses. The estimated date was over two months prior to the critical date. He also stated that theses were made available to the public by indexing in a dissertations catalog and placement in a dissertations section within the general stacks.
Issues:
1) Can the date the thesis was made accessible to the public be established based on a statement regarding the general practice of the library regarding the processing of theses, without specific evidence regarding the thesis itself?
2) Does a single thesis cataloged in a university library constitute sufficient accessibility to those interested in the art exercising reasonable diligence?
Holding:
1) Yes. Competent evidence of general practice can be used to establish the date the thesis became available to the public.
2) Yes. “The Sec. 102 publication bar is a legal determination based on underlying fact issues, and therefore must be approached on a case-by-case basis.” Under these facts, a copy of a thesis indexed and available to the public is a “printed publication” under 35 USC 102(b).
Disposition: Affirmed.
Further information:
In re Leo M. HALL